Ground control to Major Yusaku

Published in Business Punk, 06.2019

In Japan, bosses of big companies are usually old, careful and hardly spectacular. Unless it is about Yusaku Maezawa, founder of the online fashion retailer Zozotown. When I met this business star for a portrait story in Tokyo, he emphasised how today’s entrepreneurs must benefit the whole of society. At the same time, Maezawa brags about buying up paintings for millions of Euros and will soon travel to the moon with a handful of artists. Asked what he wants to do first upon landing in space, the self-made billionaire had a sudden answer: “Fart.” For doesn’t the whole world want to know if it smells on the moon? This portrait of a man who doesn’t distinguish between jokes and earnest, and possibly is so successful just because of this, was the frontpage story in Business Punk.

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© Imago

© Imago

In Japan, bosses of big companies are usually old, careful and hardly spectacular. Unless it is about Yusaku Maezawa, founder of the online fashion retailer Zozotown. When I met this business star for a portrait story in Tokyo, he emphasised how today’s entrepreneurs must benefit the whole of society. At the same time, Maezawa brags about buying up paintings for millions of Euros and will soon travel to the moon with a handful of artists. Asked what he wants to do first upon landing in space, the self-made billionaire had a sudden answer: “Fart.” For doesn’t the whole world want to know if it smells on the moon? This portrait of a man who doesn’t distinguish between jokes and earnest, and possibly is so successful just because of this, was the frontpage story in Business Punk.

Read it as published in:

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